A Wounded Soldier Stands Tall At Reunion With His Platoon

As part of homecoming ceremonies at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state in January, Army Spc. Tyler Jeffries — with crutches and prosthetic legs — joins his unit in formation as the national anthem is played. The homecoming marked the first time Jeffries had seen his platoon since he lost both his legs in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan last October.

Jeffries takes his first steps on prosthetic legs during what he described as an exhausting and painful physical therapy session at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., in November 2012, less than two months after the roadside bombing.

While his unit waits for buses to take them to a gym where family and friends will greet them, Jeffries sits in a wheelchair, one of his prosthetic legs visible.

Florangela Davila for NPR

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Originally published on February 19, 2013 7:18 pm

U.S. Army Spc. Tyler Jeffries spent most of last year in Afghanistan, on dusty, hot patrols in the villages outside Kandahar. Last fall, on Oct. 6, his tour ended three months early.

"I was clearing an area and I had the metal detector. Then we had word that there was two guys coming toward our position," Jeffries recalled later that month.

Though he had experience using the minesweeper, Jeffries never had a chance to discover the bomb that got him — it was set off by a remote "command wire." That means someone watched him step into the kill zone and then threw a switch.

"It took me 15 seconds to come back into reality, really," Jeffries said. "I came back to it, people were screaming my name and yelling at me, and I was like, 'What? What do you want?' Then I got people on me."

His buddies slapped him to keep him awake as they hoisted him up and carried him through a dry riverbed. Even as the medevac chopper came to a dusty landing, Jeffries didn't realize what had happened.

"I didn't even know my legs were gone. I kind of looked down, and that's when I saw that my legs weren't even there," he said. "They fixed me up pretty quick, put the tourniquets on me. I think I had like two on each leg. It was actually close friends of mine that ... saved my life that day."

Jeffries slipped in and out of consciousness on the way to a combat hospital in Kandahar. A few groggy days later, he woke up at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, D.C. His family flew in to be there with him for a few days, and his mother got a leave of absence from her job as a logistics coordinator at Food Lion's corporate headquarters in Salisbury, N.C., and moved to Walter Reed to stay with Jeffries for the length of his recovery.

He'd lost one leg below the knee, the other above. In mid-October, Jeffries still felt like his legs were there.

"I get a lot of phantom pain. I still feel like I have my foot there, but I feel like my foot is being crushed, like all the time. My right foot, I get it every now and again, where I just get tingling sensations or it might sting," he said. "But my left foot feels like it's being run over by a car, like someone is literally crushing all the bones in my foot."

Setting A Goal For Recovery

What kept his mind off the pain was the thought of walking again — which has become a foregone conclusion for most maimed soldiers.

"I've been going pretty fast, healing up pretty good," Jeffries said. "I figure, the next few weeks I should be getting my legs."

The doctors first built stumps of muscle around the remaining bone. Once the swelling went down, Jeffries was cast for high-tech prosthetic legs, and just days later he got to try them out. On Nov. 30, less than two months after a bomb nearly killed him, Jeffries walked again.

It was just a dozen times down and back a short therapy mat — and he held handrails the whole way. But his therapist was more than pleased. So was Jeffries, as he settled back into his wheelchair, tired but satisfied.

"That was the first time. I had a few instances where I tripped up a little bit," he said at the time. "But most of it, it's coming pretty quick, for the first time. I didn't fall at all, so I was pretty happy with myself."

His doctors called those good firststeps on what could be a long year of recovery. Jeffries had a more immediate goal in mind.

"In January, my guys come home," he said. "And I want to be there — walking — when they come home."

'The Reasons I'm Still Standing'

Many wounded soldiers say the worst part of getting hurt is leaving their buddies behind. When that medevac flew Jeffries out of the dust, his platoon still had three months of hard duty left in Kandahar. The goal of standing on his new legs to welcome them home kept Jeffries going through the holidays.

On Jan. 13, the platoon came home to Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma, Wash. Wives, children and parents waited in a gymnasium on the other side of the base, but Jeffries was standing on the tarmac when the plane taxied to a stop.

Happiness at seeing his friends mixed with an awkward frustration that he should have been getting off the plane with them, not standing on the runway. But he was standing.

"You know the guys I kept telling you about? Well, they're the reason I'm still standing here," said Jeffries, inside the hangar.

The young men hugged and their eyes watered a bit, and Jeffries said thank you again and again. Sgt. Michael Blair handed Jeffries back his wristwatch, found in the dirt after the blast. Jeffries showed his new legs to Sgt. Chris Cunningham, who last saw them covered in blood as he tied the tourniquets on last October.

"We saw the blast. I ran right in. Everybody started calling his name, and then I saw him laying there, and I just ran right in, I didn't even think. Probably a dumb thing I did, but you do what you got to do, I guess," Cunningham recalled. "I dragged him back. I started putting tourniquets on him. I told him I'd bring him home."

They did get him home. But the platoon felt one man down for the rest of the tour, says Lt. Tory Hoyt, who helped carry Jeffries to the medevac that day.

"He was that last missing piece for our platoon," Hoyt said. "When we got here, it was just the culmination of the whole deployment, was him standing there waiting for us."

At this point, Jeffries sat back into his wheelchair for a moment — he hadn't taken his pain medicine that day because he wanted to be able to have a few beers with his guys later that night.

A Whole Unit Once Again

After turning in their weapons, the men took a bus across the base to where family and friends had been waiting in the gym for hours. A huge curtain divided the hall in half, with families teeming on one side, as the troops formed up at attention on the other.

When the curtain rose, the families went nuts at the sight of their soldiers, in their camouflage fatigues, tightly in formation.

In the front row, Jeffries stood at attention with his platoon — every man made it home, and now they stood as a unit again.

Thejoyful mob held back through the national anthem and a short speech, and then a sergeant shouted, "Fall out!"

A moment's hesitation, and then the crowd charged. Happy pandemonium ensued — kissing, embracing, a few flying-legs-around-the-waist, happy-to-see-you hugs.

Spc. Tyler Jeffries settled back into his wheelchair again. The stumps of his legs were as sore as they've ever been.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. There may be an end in sight for the war in Afghanistan, but for many U.S. troops that end point is still a long way off. They're still shipping out, fighting and coming home. And, of course, some return terribly wounded. We've been following soldiers who are recuperating at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Today, NPR's Quil Lawrence brings us the story of one of them, 24-year-old Army Specialist Tyler Jeffries of Concord, North Carolina. He joined the Army after high school and, last year, he shipped out to Kandahar.

TYLER JEFFRIES: What happened was I was clearing an area and I had the mine - metal detector.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Private Jeffries spent most of last year on dusty, hot patrols in the villages outside Kandahar. Last fall, on October 6th, his tour ended three months early.

JEFFRIES: I had most of the area, most of the area cleared to where we were going to set in, and then we had word that there was two guys coming to our position.

LAWRENCE: Jeffries said he was good at using the mine sweeper, but he never had a chance to discover the bomb that got him. It was set off by a remote command wire. That means someone watched him step into the kill zone and then threw a switch.

JEFFRIES: It took me like 15 seconds to come back - to come back into reality, really. And I kind of came - I came back to it, people were screaming my name and I was like, and like they were yelling at me, and I was like, what? Like, what do you want? Like what's going on? And then something had - I got blown up. Something happened. Stuff like that. Then I got people on me.

LAWRENCE: His buddies were slapping him to keep him awake as they carried Jeffries through a dry riverbed to an impromptu landing zone for the medevac chopper. He didn't realized what had happened.

JEFFRIES: I didn't even know my legs were gone until, like, I started getting to the HLZ. I kind of looked down, and that's when I saw that my legs weren't even there. They fixed me up pretty quick, put tourniquets on me. I think I had like two on each leg. A couple of my buddies - it was actually close friends of mine that actually fixed me up and saved my life that day.

LAWRENCE: He slipped in and out of consciousness on the way to a combat hospital in Kandahar. A few groggy days later he woke up at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with family at his bedside. That's where I met Jeffries in mid-October. He still had a few more surgeries to endure.

JEFFRIES: I get a lot of phantom pains. Like, 'cause like, I still feel like I have my foot there, but I feel like my foot is being crushed, like all the time. My right foot, I get it every now and again, where I just get tingling sensations and it might sting or, like, a little something here or there, but my left foot just - it feels like it's being run over by a car, or like someone is like literally just crushing all the bones in my foot.

LAWRENCE: What kept his mind off the pain was the thought of walking again.

JEFFRIES: I know I should get fitted for legs here in the next, like, week or two. I'm thinking I've been going pretty fast, healing up pretty good. So I figure the next few weeks I should be getting my legs, hopefully.

LAWRENCE: That was late October. With so many having gone through Walter Reed before him, soldiers like Tyler Jeffries can almost seem nonchalant about the miracle of new legs. The doctors first built stumps of muscle around the remaining bone. Once the swelling went down, Jeffries was cast for high-tech prosthetic legs. Just days later, he got to try them out. A few other patients milled around the therapy room as Jeffries prepared to take his first steps, less than two months after a bomb had nearly killed him.

The motors in his prosthetic knee and ankles made a small zip sound as he worked his way down and back between two handrails. His therapist was more than pleased.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: All right. That's a phenomenal start.

LAWRENCE: A few moments later, outside the building, Jeffries settled back into his wheelchair and cooled off in the November air, calm but satisfied.

JEFFRIES: I mean, that was the first time. Like, I had a few instances where I, you know, tripped up a little bit, you know, but most of it, like it's coming pretty quick, like for the first time I didn't fall at all or anything like that, so I was pretty happy with myself.

LAWRENCE: His doctors called those good first steps on what could be a long year of recovery. Jeffries had a more immediate goal in mind.

JEFFRIES: I'm going to be here for a year. In January my guys come home. I think they come home and I want to be there walking when they come home.

Many wounded soldiers say the worst part of getting hurt is leaving their buddies behind. When that medevac flew Jeffries out of the dust, his guys still had three months of hard duty left in Kandahar. The goal of standing on his new legs to greet his platoon kept Jeffries going through the holidays. Last month, at an airbase near Tacoma, Washington, hundreds of soldiers stepped off a transport plane home from Kandahar.

LAWRENCE: Wives, children and parents waited for them in a gymnasium on the other side of the base, but Tyler Jeffries was standing on the tarmac when the plane taxied to a stop. Happiness at seeing his friends mixed with an awkward frustration that he should be getting off the plane with them, not standing on the runway. But he was standing.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: You should've seen this new unit...

LAWRENCE: These are all young men not given to displays. They hugged and their eyes watered a bit, and Jeffries said thank you again and again. Sergeant Michael Blair handed Jeffries back his wristwatch, found in the dirt after the blast. Jeffries showed his new legs to Sergeant Chris Cunningham, who tied the tourniquets on them months ago.

JEFFRIES: I mean, this is the guy... the guy I kept telling you guys about. You know, they're the reason I'm still standing here.

LAWRENCE: Last time Cunningham saw his friend, he was covered in blood.

CHRIS CUNNINGHAM: We saw the blast. I ran right in. Everybody started calling his name, and then I saw him laying there, and I just ran right in, I didn't even think. Probably a dumb thing I did, but you do what you got to do, I guess. I dragged him back. I mean, I started putting tourniquets on him. You know, I told him I'd bring him home, you know.

LAWRENCE: They did get him home. But the platoon felt one man down for the rest of the tour. Lieutenant Tory Hoyt helped carry Jeffries to the chopper that day.

TORY HOYT: He was that last missing piece for our platoon. When we got here, it was just the culmination of our whole deployment was him standing there waiting for us.

LAWRENCE: Jeffries sits back into his wheelchair for a moment. He hasn't taken his pain medicine today because he wants to be able to drink beer with his guys tonight.

CUNNINGHAM: I got the brakes on, so you're not going to be able to slide back.

LAWRENCE: Sergeant Cunningham rolls him over to buses where they all load up for the big homecoming ceremony with the families waiting across the base. Family and friends, hundreds of people, have been waiting in the gym for hours. The walls are decked out with welcome posters and a huge curtain cuts the hall in half. The troops form up at attention on one side of the curtain and the families crowd on the other.

When the curtain rises, the families go nuts. The joyful mob holds back at the sight of their soldiers in their camouflage fatigues, tightly in formation. In the front row, Tyler Jeffries stands at attention with his platoon. A moment's hesitation and then the crowd charges. Happy pandemonium ensues, kissing, embracing, a few flying-legs-around-the-waist, happy-to-see-you hugs.

Specialist Tyler Jeffries settles back into his wheelchair. The stumps of his legs are as sore as they've ever been. Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.